MILAN (AP) — Sampdoria finally scored its first goal of the season as Manolo Gabbiadini netted in injury time to secure a 1-1 draw against Lazio in Serie A on Wednesday.
Ciro Immobile’s first-half goal had looked set to hand Lazio another win, but the draw prevented the unbeaten Rome club from moving level at the top of the table with city rival Roma after four rounds.
Juventus and Napoli are also unbeaten and they play Spezia and Lecce respectively later. Lazio plays Napoli on Saturday.
Lazio was looking to build on an impressive 3-1 victory against Inter Milan last weekend.
Maurizio Sarri’s side took the lead in the 21st minute with a fantastic assist from Sergej Milinković-Savić, who sent Immobile clear with the cheekiest of backheel flicks and the forward coolly slotted home.
Immobile almost doubled his tally moments later but his follow-up shot hit the left post after Mattia Zaccagni had his effort parried by Sampdoria goalkeeper Emil Audero.
Samp thought it should have had a penalty shortly afterwards when Fabio Quagliarella went down in the area under pressure from Patric and Adam Marušić. Referee Gianluca Aureliano waved play on before then reviewing the incident on the pitchside monitor.
He stuck to his original decision, much to the dismay of the home team and Aurelio went to talk to Quagliarella as well as Sampdoria coach Marco Giampaolo.
Lazio pushed hard for a second but also risked conceding an equalizer and goalkeeper Ivan Provedel made impressive saves to deny Quagliarella and Tomás Rincón.
Just as it looked as if Samp was about to end the match goalless again, Rincón threaded the ball through to Gabbiadini, who fired into the bottom right corner.
FIRST DEFEAT
Fiorentina fell to a 1-0 loss at Udinese for its first defeat of the season.
Beto scored for the second straight match for Udinese.
Empoli and Hellas Verona drew 1-1 to leave both sides still searching for their first wins of the season.
___
More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports